Archive for the ‘HHS Updates’ Category
Scanning the genomes of more than 100,000 people from all over the world, scientists report the largest set of genes discovered underlying high cholesterol and high triglycerides — the major risk factors for coronary heart disease, the nation’s number one killer. Taken together, the gene variants explain between a quarter and a third of the inherited portions of cholesterol and triglyceride measured in the blood. The research, representing scientists from 17 countries, appears in two papers in the Aug. 5 issue of Nature.
The National Institutes of Health today launched a multidisciplinary network of experts who will explore new approaches to understanding the origins of health disparities, or differences in the burden of disease among population groups. Using state-of-the-science conceptual and computational models, the network’s goal is to identify important areas where interventions or policy changes could have the greatest impact in eliminating health disparities. The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), part of NIH, is contracting with the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, to establish the Network on Inequality, Complexity, and Health (NICH).
People with treatment-resistant bipolar disorder experienced relief from symptoms of depression in as little as 40 minutes after an intravenous dose of the anesthetic medication ketamine in a preliminary study; while the patient group was small, this work adds to evidence that compounds in the class to which ketamine belongs have potential as rapid and effective medications for depression, including bipolar depression.
Nobel Prize winner Harold E. Varmus, M.D., today took the oath of office to become the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) 14th director. NCI is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), currently known for its therapeutic benefits against HIV, also reduced the spread of the virus among people with a history of injection drug use, according to a population-based study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health. The study was published today in the Lancet.
Today’s older Americans enjoy longer lives and better health than did previous generations. These and other trends are reported in Older Americans 2010: Key Indicators of Well-Being, a unique, comprehensive look at aging in the United States from the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.
The National Institutes of Health Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health announces the appointment of five new members: Francisco Garcia, M.D., M.P.H., Ronda S. Henry-Tillman, M.D., F.A.C.S., Karen E. Kim, M.D., Claire Pomeroy, M.D., and Paul F. Terranova, Ph.D.
Today we congratulate the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and the people of South Africa on the positive findings from the CAPRISA 004 microbicide study, which marks a significant milestone both for the microbicide research field and HIV prevention as a whole.
To coincide with the 2010 International AIDS Conference in Vienna, NIDA has written a special issue of NewsScan on HIV/AIDS which features recent articles on the connection between drug abuse and HIV/AIDS and prevention and treatment strategies, authored by researchers supported by NIDA and other leading research organizations.